Chelsea have become the first team in the Women’s Super League to introduce fertility and maternity policies for their players, giving female athletes the chance to plan for starting a family while keeping their professional careers on track.
The Blues’ new policies give players choices about how they start a family, with support during and after that decision. The club partnered with Fertility Plus, a London clinic, and former goalkeeper Carly Telford led the arrangement. Telford, who now works as commercial manager for the women’s team, said the aim was simple: give players more information before they have to make a call.
“Every player is different, every individual is different, they have a different journey and you can make a choice based on what you know and what is available for you,” head coach Sonia Bompastor told Sky Sports. “You don’t have to choose anymore between your professional career and your personal life being a mum. Now, both are possible.”
What the policies cover
The policies build on Chelsea’s earlier work tracking menstrual cycles, a move started by Emma Hayes in February 2020. Telford said the new arrangement goes further than egg freezing alone.
“I wanted to find someone that understood us as athletes first, but also understood us as women and what that comes with,” she said. “I wanted to find a fertility clinic that offered more than just egg freezing and more than just optional things, but to give choices around hormones, endometriosis, cycle tracking, testing – something all-encompassing around the female body.”
Players can use the resources in whatever way suits them, Telford said. The club’s role is providing information, not directing choices.
Bompastor’s personal stake
Bompastor herself has four children with her partner, Chelsea assistant coach Camille Abily. She said her own career taught her what it means to lack those choices.
“When I reflect on my own story and experience, I didn’t really have the choice,” she explained. “I wanted to have a really good career as a player and I decided to carry on and to finish maybe a little bit earlier than what I should have done because I also wanted to become a mum and have a family.”
“With the knowledge I had in that moment and everything that was available for me, I thought it was almost the only way for me to do that, because when we talk about becoming a mum when you are still an athlete, there are lot of questions to answer.”
“It’s about the pregnancy, but also everything after that. How can you look after your kid when you are an athlete and you play at the highest level? All these things were really difficult questions for me and I didn’t have all the answers.”
Now, she said, the club can offer players information she never had.
How players have responded
No Chelsea players have publicly said they will use the new resources, which Telford stressed should stay private. But she spoke with several members of the squad, and the response has been positive.
“We touched base with some of the players and I’m lucky enough to be friends with a lot of them, so I leant on a few of them just to see what they felt about what this would look like for them,” Telford said. “A lot of the feedback was ‘this would be really good, keep us across it’.”
“As soon as we knew the deal with Fertility Plus deal was close, we informed the leadership group who then informed the team and since then, we’ve had a lot of good feedback. The players are feeling very comfortable with it and then how they act upon that based on their own individual needs.”
The wider picture
Telford said she wants other clubs, the league and the Football Association to follow Chelsea’s lead.
“It’s an important thing to have that every club should be looking at, the league should be looking at, the FA should be looking at in terms of making sure that women have a choice when it comes to their whole body and what that looks like during and after their careers,” she said.
The policies also signal a shift in how clubs treat female players beyond their athletic roles, Telford argued.
“It brings comfort and a thought process that we as a club are looking at them differently and are treating them as people as well as footballers. They will give their whole bodies to this club for the amount of time they’re with us and it’s an extra option for them to think about themselves.”
What happens next
Chelsea have made the first move. The question now is whether other WSL clubs follow.
| Club | Policy status |
|---|---|
| Chelsea | First WSL team to introduce fertility and maternity policies |
| Other WSL teams | None stated |
Key figures
- Emma Hayes started tracking menstrual cycles at Chelsea in February 2020
- Carly Telford led the partnership with Fertility Plus
- Bompastor has four children with Camille Abily
- No Chelsea players have publicly said they will use the new resources
Reaction
Chelsea’s move is a genuine step forward for women’s sport and women’s health. Giving players information about fertility and maternity is not a perk — it is a recognition that professional athletes are also women, and that their bodies deserve care and attention alongside their training schedules.
The policies are designed to help players balance elite sport with motherhood, a balance that has often been assumed impossible. Chelsea have shown that assumption was wrong.
The club’s history of being first tells you something about how seriously they take this. Thursday’s announcement continues that record.
Chelsea are the first team in the WSL to introduce fertility and maternity policies. The players now have more choices than ever before.
See the video the story is built around at Sky Sports.
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